High on a column supporting the bell tower of Grimsby Minster sits a small carved imp, presented in local tradition as the mischievous companion of the far more famous Lincoln Imp found in the neighbouring county's own great cathedral. The story goes that the Devil originally sent two imps out together to cause mischief, and that both ended up at Lincoln Cathedral, where one, bolder than his companion, was brazen enough to start throwing rocks directly at an angel sent specifically to deal with the pair, and was promptly turned to stone on the spot for his defiance, becoming the genuinely old and celebrated Lincoln Imp still famous today.
The second, considerably more cowardly imp, according to the story, hid himself under a table and managed to escape the angel's initial punishment entirely, only to travel on afterward to Grimsby and resume his troublemaking there instead, apparently believing himself safely beyond the angel's reach. The angel, however, eventually caught up with him regardless, turning him to stone in Grimsby just as his companion had been turned to stone in Lincoln, with an added swat on the backside for good measure as a final, undignified punishment for his earlier cowardice.
Unlike the genuinely old Lincoln Imp legend, which has been told and retold for centuries, the Grimsby Imp appears to be a distinctly modern piece of civic folklore: the earliest written references to it seem to date only from around 2017, making it a genuinely good example of how new local legends can still be created around old, existing carvings even now, well into the internet age, when most people assume this kind of organic folklore creation belongs entirely to the past.
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